Triple Word Scores
by IamThePasserby
Summary: “What am I supposed to do Sam!” he asked through the door.“I DON’T CARE! FEED A SQUIRREL, PAINT A HOUSE! BUY A FRIGGIN’ BOARD GAME!”So he did.


Triple Word Scores

Boredom is a funny thing.

Ok, actually, it's not. Boredom is really very unfunny. If it were funny at all, it wouldn't be so unbearable. But the reality is that boredom happens to the best of us, and though far from being a funny thing, it still makes us _do_ funny things.

And boredom definitely makes Dean do some _really_ funny things.

He'd checked into the establishment with the hopes of moving on rather quickly.

Montana had never been one of his favorite places.

He didn't have anything against the state, he just…couldn't find anything much for it either. Yet, somehow, they were stuck in good old Montana for three whole dang weeks just to wait out the lunar cycle so that they could take another crack at that_ stupid _creature that was attacking random people once a month.

Three weeks…to do_ nothing_.

Needless to say, Dean was going crazy. Cable could only entertain for so many minutes, and with Sam always finding _some_ reason to be using his laptop, Dean had little opportunity to find alternate forms of amusement. For some reason, Sam didn't appreciate much when Dean resorted to throwing things at the back of his head.

Dean couldn't see why. It seemed pretty funny to him.

However, when Sam finally began shouting that he'd had enough of Dean's immaturity, _Pshhhh__, I'm not immature…on Tuesdays…_ and that Dean should find something, anything to keep him occupied, Dean left to do just that.

Actually, he didn't really, leave; Sam threw him out.

"What am I supposed to do Sam?!" he asked through the door.

"I DON'T _CARE_! FEED A SQUIRREL, PAINT A HOUSE! BUY A STINKIN' BOARD GAME!"

So he did.

He went somewhat grumpily to the nearest store. There wasn't much selection. Basically, it was Connect Four, Monopoly, or Scrabble. Dean had never played any of them before. He decided on Scrabble, because he figured that any game he chose would require both of them to play, and that would be the game that Sam would probably like best. It had lots of…words…and stuff. Sam liked that kind of thing.

He paid for the game, and when he got in the car, he considered reading the rules to find out how to play before he got back to the motel and looked like an idiot for not knowing how to play Scrabble.

"Yeah right," Dean shook his head at himself.

How hard could it be?

Sam was regretting losing his patience with Dean. He hadn't meant to yell so much, but getting hit in the back of the head with balled up socks got _really_ annoying after two hours.

He was a bit relieved when Dean walked back in the door twenty minutes later with his good humor still intact.

"Hey, Sammy."

"Hey…" Sam watched curiously as his older brother drew a long, rectangular box out of a plastic store bag. Dean grinned stupidly, "You up for a game?"

"_Scrabble?_"

"Yeah. Looked like…" Dean searched for an adequate description. He couldn't find one that was honest so he settled for the next best thing, "…fun?" Dean was finding Sam's incredulously amused face a bit off putting.

"You think losing will be fun?" Sam was looking supremely confident. It was annoying.

"What's that supposed to mean?" If anything, Sam seemed to look even smugger.

"Well, we both know I'd beat you into the _ground_ with that game, Dean." Dean nearly laughed at that.

"No way, Sammy." Now his little brother was looking skeptical.

"Oh, yeah what makes you so sure?"

"'Cause I'm the big brother. That means I win at everything." Dean was totally serious. Sam blinked.

"Does not," Sam insisted. He reminded Dean of when they were kids.

"Dude," it was Dean's turn to grin now, "it totally does."

"Spell hippopotamus." Sam was looking smug again. Dangit.

Dean opened his mouth for a second, then thought better of it.

"Bite me," he said instead. He glared at Sam, who was looking a bit thoughtful.

"Dean, c'mon, why would you want to play Scrabble of all things?"

"I dunno," Dean was getting frustrated now, "I just thought you'd like it." For one horrifying second, Sammy looked like he was going put on his 'Aw I'm Touched' face; Dean was relieved when his younger sibling settled for looking condescending.

"You are _really_ bored aren't you?" Dean couldn't deny it.

"Dude, bored out of my_ mind_."

"Okay," Sammy smirked, "we'll play."

Sam sat across from his brother feeling thoroughly unchallenged. He knew Dean had never so much a touched a board game in his life. Sam, however, had been forced into playing Scrabble and several other games with Jessica and her friends while at Stanford; they had considered his lack of game board experience to be evidence of a deprived life, and were determined to cure him of that.

Sam sighed as he glazed over the rules, explaining to Dean about double word scores and drawing new tiles, etcetera, etcetera.

Then the game began.

They each drew a tile from the bag to see who would go first. Sam drew an 'S'. Dean drew a 'T'.

Sam couldn't help but smirk as he got to go first.

He picked his tiles one by one from the bag, placing them onto his little tile-holder-upper thing and then taking the liberty of reorganizing them while Dean chose his tiles.

With the 'S' Sam had chosen in the center of the board (which also meant he automatically got a double word score), Sam placed a 'G', an 'I', and a 'T' down beside it, and spelled out 'gist'.

"Well," he said happily, "with my double word score, that's ten points to me." He drew three more tiles, glad to get another 'S' along with an 'H' and another 'T'.

"Your turn," he announced to Dean, who was looking like he hadn't realized before that 'gist' was spelled with a 'G'. Dean looked down at his tiles, looked back at the bored, then looked at his tiles again. Sam noticed that he was beginning to chew his lip.

"'Kay." His older brother said, sounding more focused than one should have to be for Scrabble. Dean put down an 'I' above the 'S' from 'gist', spelling 'is'. Two points.

Sam decided not to say anything.

The youngest Winchester placed down four more tiles under the 'G' of 'gist to make 'groan'. He added seven points to his score.

It was Dean's turn again. The eldest hunter was looking down at his tiles. He looked up at Sam, looking concerned. Sam sensed a question coming.

"Is it against the rules to use all of your tiles at once?" Dean asked. Sam blinked.

"Uh," Sam struggled not to stammer, " no…it's-it's a good thing. You get a fifty point bonus for it." Dean looked disbelieving.

"Really?" he asked.

"_Yeah_." Sam was wondering why the room had suddenly gotten smaller.

"Awesome," Dean smiled as he laid all seven of his tiles down, six of them above 'is' and the last one below it.

He'd spelled out 'masochist'.

Sam stared while Dean slowly counted his points.

"…plus fifty - oh wait!" Sam looked blankly at his smiling brother, "Almost forgot my triple word score!" Dean said as he grinned wider.

Sam sat back heavily in his chair as his brother added one hundred and one points to his earlier score of two.

"Dean," Sam noticed that his voice sounded weak. He cleared his throat a bit, "do you even know what that means?" Sam wasn't sure if he was referring to the word or the points.

"Dude," Dean replied, looking at Sam happily, "who doesn't?"

Sam stared again.

Twenty minutes later, Sam was beginning to hate Scrabble.

He gotten the only stupid 'Q' in the entire game, and he couldn't find a single spot to get rid of the thing. He kept picking out consonants when he needed vowels, and he couldn't manage to put down any words with more than five letters.

Dean, meanwhile, had managed two more fifty point bonuses by spelling 'marinate' using the 'M' from 'masochist, and 'elastics' using the 'E' from 'marinate'. Both words had landed on triple word scores.

Needless to say, Dean won the game, insisting that Scrabble had to have been invented by some guy who was an older brother.

Sam meanwhile, could've sworn that Scrabble had to have been invented by a demon.

The next two weeks were spent playing an odd kind of Scrabble tournament. Sam seemed sure that Dean's first victory had been a fluke, and that if they kept playing, it was only a matter of time until his superior vocabulary beat his brother into the ground.

Dean won every single game.

One time they had invited the motel manager to play with them.

He beat Sam too. When Sam had looked aghast at his loss, Dean had proceeded to explain that the hotel manager had five younger siblings, so it only made sense that he would beat Sam.

Sam just challenged Dean to another game. Dean told him it was only a matter of time until Sam gave up trying.

After the last day of the third week, Sam decided he would never play Scrabble again.

Dean announced that he was keeping the Scrabble game forever, just in case he ever got bored again.

Boredom is a funny thing.


End file.
